The Waiting Room
by GhostOfBambi
Summary: Their house wasn't home whenever he wasn't in it.


**Author's Note: I actually have an excuse to explain why I have not been writing! Two excuses. The first is that I emigrated to England at the end of November, and have not had much time to write while I was getting settled, securing a job, and finding a boyfriend in the form of my housemate's friend (I move pretty fast, as it happens. Get in! He's well nice, too.). The second is that I had a raging sinus infection for over a month that gave me terrible headaches and got pretty serious. A hospital visit was involved, if anyone would like to feel bad for me. I am much, if not fully, recovered now, and I was in the mood to write about my two favourite fictional characters. I'm working on some multi-chapter stuff and a fun oneshot, but in the meantime, here's something short, dark and angsty to tide you over. Much love to all of you, and Happy New Year!**

**The Waiting Room**

She sat in the kitchen, alone, of course, staring at the clock on the wall, waiting to hear the doorknob turn. She'd made tea, as she usually did, and kept her fingers gripped around the mug as she sat, and stared, and waited, and never drank a sip. She poured it down the sink when she started feeling restless.

The tea had been a waste of money, and long would it continue, she did suppose. She only persisted in making it for want of something to do. Two minutes of distraction were better than none. It always grew cold before it found the chance to pass her lips, and so it was thrown away, on every night such as this, without fail. Every time. Just a distraction. A pathetically weak one.

James had been gone for five hours and thirteen minutes. She knew this – having never made any conscious decision to keep count of how long he was away, whenever he had to leave – because she just knew, in the same way she knew which was his pillow when she made up their bed, in the same way she could have spotted him from far away in a very large crowd, knowing his gait in the way that she did. It was an instinctive thing, some kind of sixth sense, one that lay dormant in a woman until she fell in love, then sprung into being with alacrity and force.

The unused drawer by the sink rattled. It served as lodgings for a wayward Boggart. Sirius had christened it with some characteristically crude nickname on his last visit - she couldn't exactly recall – and James had promised to take care of it. Here it rattled ever still, having never been disturbed, possibly believing it had found a permanent home. She possessed the skills required to get rid of it herself, but lately she hadn't felt up to it. She'd been feeling very ill that month, nauseated, weary. Her favourite foods were turning her stomach. It was all of the stress, she supposed. War did worse things to people. Worse still, she was frightened, scared of a Boggart, unable even to venture too close to the drawer. She was scared of the things she might see if she did.

James Potter had been her first, and therefore, her only. The first whom she had loved with selfless abandon, loved more even than she could have loved herself, the kind of love that ravages a woman raw, transformative and cruel. Love of its kind made fools out of people, could reduce anyone to a pitiful slave. She feared for his life more than for her own. She had seen him die, bore witness to his murder, over and over and over again, whenever she slept, in every nightmare. The sight lurked behind her eyes in daylight, interrupting the most mundane of thoughts, bringing her to tears at inconvenient times. She didn't need to see it manifest within her kitchen. She wouldn't find the laughter to drive it away.

Besides, the rattling was company, and she was terribly alone.

The clock ticked on. She heard, or imagined, a noise from outside, and her eyes – beautifully green as ever, but lacking in their old lustre - darted to the window, seeing nothing, because she kept them all covered. On nights such as these, when she was left alone with the house and her thoughts, and the rattling Boggart, she lived in childlike terror of uncovering those windows. She imagined enemies in the dark, appearing suddenly before her eyes, leering through the glass, signalling the end of everything. The Hollow had been adorned for the festive season, with trees and tinsel and pretty holly wreaths, and yards upon yards of twinkling, glittering lights, and she could have seen them from her kitchen, but Christmas left her oddly cold this year. She had always loved and delighted in Christmas, but it seemed to have lost its place in her life.

They were never scheduled for duty together, her and James, much as they had protested. A calculated move on Dumbledore's part. It was some sort of cruel irony, for he had thrust them together in their last year at school, inadvertently helped nudge a burgeoning friendship into the first blooms of love. It would have happened by itself, she knew this for certain, but still, he'd been there, part of it all, another little cog in the mechanics of everything. One of the many they thanked on the day of their wedding. Now he endeavoured to keep them apart.

She hated it.

His reasoning was sound, in theory. Perhaps it even made sense in practice. Together, he felt that they were far too likely to lose track, to be insensible, to let emotion cloud their judgement in dangerous situations, to put themselves at risk if they felt the other was in danger. Far too in love, to be brief, and so they did their shifts apart, accompanied by others, those for whom they were perhaps less inclined to throw themselves in front of in the face of death. One would go on duty, and the other one would spend the night alone, in the house they shared as husband and wife, and Lily supposed that Dumbledore only wanted to keep them safe, but it didn't feel like kindness. It felt like punishment, like torture, like they'd done a bad thing and must be made to suffer. The nights spent alone were worse than nights spent on duty. She didn't like to fight and it wasn't in her nature, but it was easier when she was, forced to focus on the job, and on tactics, and on the simple human instinct to keep herself alive. It was horror, but it was easier, because she'd know that wherever she was, he was home, warm, waiting, loving her, not wholly untouchable, but reasonably safe. That wasn't an option when she was at home.

It was sickness, what she'd feel, whenever he walked out the door. It churned within her and seemed to be endless, dissipate it would not, no matter what she tried. She couldn't eat, or drink, or smile, or think of anything, anything at all but him, and his face and his scent, and the sound of his voice, and the fear that they might be lost to her then, right in that instant, and that if they were, she couldn't feel it, didn't know in a flash like she was supposed to have done, that she'd failed, and he was dead, or could be dying. It filled her, possessed her, and spread from within, through her fingers and toes, and every breath she exhaled. It crept along the floors, and climbed the walls like creeping ivy, seeping into every crack and crevice. The house wasn't home when he was on duty. It was dispassionate and haunted, and felt cavernous, and her footsteps seemed to echo wherever she walked. The cushions weren't soft. The food became tasteless. Every inconsequential noise was the movement of an enemy. Endless piles of wood could never keep the fire burning. Photographs of loved ones were photographs of strangers. It wasn't their home when he wasn't there. It was a cold and ghostly waiting room, with a kettle and a fridge.

The clock ticked on, and struck three in the morning. She thought about bed, but gave up the idea. The bed was as unfriendly as anything else. It dwarfed her without him, and it was too hot, and made her itch. She'd lie awake for hours, scratching until her skin burned. In the past she'd washed her sheets, and changed pyjamas, but the itching got worse, and her skin burned more fiercely. The pillows seemed flat, and prickly, and the mattress was hard, and made her body ache. There wasn't any point in going to bed; she'd toss and turn, fretful and tired, and never find comfort, and never find sleep.

She groaned, and rubbed her eyes, and wondered if he ever felt the same way she did, when he was left at home, alone but for a clock that ticked forever. She wondered if he felt that same sickness, the never ending churning. She'd never thought to ask him, or never had the time, or rarely got to see him, and she wanted to be the strong, supportive wife. She wanted to greet him with a smile. He was always positive, always encouraging, always sure that good would win out over evil. He believed that there was brightness in their future.

But she was snapping, and it was showing, and she felt she'd let him down.

James seemed to handle everything so much better than she did. She put up with her duties, and he relished them. She cried, but he could laugh, recollecting his adventures with other Order members, with the boys, with Sirius, nights spent dodging Death Eaters, evading capture, playing at heroes. He hadn't left his childhood too far behind. Hers was gone completely. She was only nineteen years old.

She wanted his voice, his touch, and his lips upon hers. She wanted to hear words she could only believe when they fell from his lips. She wanted the sickness to vanish to nothing. She wanted the house to know her again. She wanted a bed that was softer than heaven, with sheets that caressed her skin like silk. The house became home whenever he crossed the threshold. She wanted her youth, and she wanted her laughter. She wanted to forget what it felt like to fear. She wanted to know that her husband was safe.

The clock ticked ever on, but her tears fell in silence.


End file.
